One thing I can guarantee, the magistrates benches will take great enjoyment from handing the most stringent and hard hitting sentences they possible can.

The first sentence was passed this morning.A looter was sentenced to one day in prison but released as he had already served time in the cells.A really hard hitting sentence.

As I said, the most stringent and hard hitting sentences they possibly can. Magistrates can't just impose any sentence they feel like. They have very definite sentence bands based on the charge the accused faces. Depends on what the CPS and police charge the scrote with. The person is sentenced for the crime, not the circumstance or context. I'd be interested to know what the individual was charged with. I suspect some low level public order offence where custody would not be within the usual sentencing band anyway.

While it may be true that there is a group that relishes contact with the rozzers I think it's a far larger group who will join the festivities once they determine the cops approach is to stand by while the looting is going on.

If they're sitting at home watching gangs walk out with their hands full of really cool stuff, and they hear their mates bragging about how easy it all is and that they're missing out, I'd venture that they'll be out the next night.

On the other hand, if those same mates stumble in with split heads, eyes streaming from CS gas, nursing dog bites etc, that small group that relishes the fight will remain a very small group indeed.

The stuff I've seen the coppers in England use for quelling riots is hardly "cracking down" even when they do. Where are the water canon? Where are the rubber bullets?

I like the line about it may have calmed down in London because there's nothing left to nick. As you say, it could be the police presence (bear in mind that a lot of these guys had to be drafted in from neighboring forces which leaves their patch short) but I got an email from an ex-Legion mate of mine who said all the able bodied men in his neighborhood armed themselves with 2x4s, cricket and baseball bats etc and formed groups out in the street with the message "loot at your own risk" clear for all to see.

I've seen this put to great effect here as well. Much was made about the looting during Hurricane Katrina here a few years ago. In Texas a month later another Hurricane came through and locals dragged out their guns and put up signs saying "you loot, we shoot." Results - one looter shot dead, one caught and given to cops and no more looting.

Nick

PS: Very sad to hear that thugs in Manchester and the Pool etc were walking out of stores sitting on the footpaths trying on the jeans and shoes they'd just nicked to see if they fit and going back inside for a different pair if they didn't...and all the while passers by and cops stood around watching. Shame and not the Britain I was told about growing up. Where's Churchill when you need him?

I forgot to add they should never have done away with the "Riot Act" which if memory serves was abolished in 1973 or 5. Chris, perhaps you could cut and paste it for people to see what it contained and explain why it was taken off the books in the first place.

I'm loving the reports of people banding together to fight these cunts. It really helps me to feel some hope for the future. I'm really proud of these people. It's what Britain needs more of. Decent people coming together to say "We will not tolerate this."

It's great to see people taking to the streets to help clear up the wanton devastation as well. Good on all of them!

The authorities need to pull their finger out and start whopping some arse however. The "softly softly "shit isn't working, and hasn't worked for quite some time now.

It's a different climate Nick, police and politicians wont even say the words "water cannon" or "rubber bullets" because of fear that they will be seen as responsible for the use of such measures. They live in the ever present fear of public opinion and the Ian Tomlinson case has terrified politicians and police officers alike. One slip and footage is on the internet for the whole world to see.

Go back to 1984, there's no internet and the police force didn't much care about public opinion as long as they had the backing of the government at the time. Maggie T didn't concern herself with the Great British public much either, she was more of the "mother knows best, so eat your greens and speak when spoken to" type of political animal. She really thought she knew better than anyone else and damn the consequences. Hence, the miners being smashed into a million pieces without a seconds thought or concern.

Anyhoo, I digress.

The Riot Act came into force in the early 1700's. Was repealed in 1973.

It gave the local authorities (usually in the form of a mayor or JP) the power to order the dispersal of any group of 12 or more people gathered together. ""unlawfully, riotously, and tumultuously assembled together"." Failure to disperse within one hour of the order being given was potentially punishable by death. Any empowered individual who moved to disperse the group was also indemnified against any legal consequences.

The Act also allowed for the death penalty to be specifically used against those guilty of causing damage to property any action for such property damage could be brought up to a year after the event.

Any group which was "read the Riot Act" i.e. a physical act of an empowered individual reading the group the legislative requirements from a written document was subject to its requirements and ultimately its penalties. Over time the death penalty was reduced to transportation and it's last use was early 1920's I think.

Other criminal legislation was predominantly used in public order offences instead and the antiquated nature of the penalties associated with the Act meant it was repealed in all but name by about 1900.

The Criminal Justice system moved on and the Riot Act was pretty much considered obsolete by 1900.

as a side note, I have done some digging and found at least six examples of arrested rioters and looters coming up in front of the Magistrates court.

All of them were either remanded in custody (a massive surprise when the presumption is that everyone has a right to bail!) and all have been handed off to the Crown Court for either trial or sentencing.

Exactly as I said, the Magistrates are handing over these scrotes to the big boys for big boy sentencing. Where the Magistrates do sentence I expect to see them working at the heaviest end of their sentencing bands for the charges in question.

Thanks for that Chris...I can see nothing in it that should stand in the way of bringing it back (other than transporting scrotes to Australia ). I especially like the death penalty for those causing damage. I wonder if this was in force how many buildings would be burned down at this point?

Ace, you have a good point mate. All I can tell you is that the Magistrates Court deals with 97% of ALL criminal legal proceedings. The sentencing bands they operate to are continuously being appraised and updated.

Can't deny though that a driving factor in all criminal procedings is to keep things moving. Proceed, sentence, remand, commit to trial etc. The emphasis is always on resolution of every case you see in front of you and that can be a tricky balancing act when you have a complex case to handle or multiple evidentiary feeds to review. Not making excuses and things could certainly be done better.

Nick,

I hear what you are saying. When you break things down a large number of legislative enactments of the time within the criminal justice system were designed to protect personal intetrests and maintain the status quo. For example, the mill owners, mine owners, factory owners, lords of the manor, etc were usually also the JP's and mayors. If they had a handful of lads who were pissed off with their working conditions and wanted to make their feelings known you can imagine how that was handled by the boss. Before they knew it, a meeting to talk amongst themselves ended up with the boss turning up with some hired thugs (free of any legal repercussions for ANYTHING they did to the workers) and lo and behold they were read the Riot Act and the ring leaders were being hung. If they weren't hung then they were being shipped off to Australia! Bit harsh, even though many of their offspring are now clapping their hands in the sun!!

Much of the criminal justice system was massively corrupt at the time, manipulated by the wealthy or the criminals for their own ends. One of the most profitable crimes of the 1700's was the "citizens arrest" of highwaymen and thieves. This led to villains and hard men pouncing on innocent men, beating them unconscious and accusing them of thievery and crimes that the villains themselves had committed! A couple of witnesses paid off, a healthy reward for each conviction and you've got a nice little cottage industry for the criminal gangs. Take a look at the life of Jonathan Wilde from the time, the biggest gangster in London who sold "thieves" to the gallows for £40 along with numerous other ingenious uses of the criminal justice system.

That type of corruption was pretty much what led to the repeal of the criminal acts in force at the time.

Hello Rioters. Look at your friend, now back to me. Now at your friend, now back to me. Sadly, he isn't me, but if he stopped using petrol bombs and started using job centre he could potentially be me.

"Look down, back up. You're at an interview with the man your friend could work for. What's in your hand? Back at me. It's an application form to that job you need. Look again. The form is now money. Anything is possible when you get a job and stop looting. I'm on a horse."

I bet a lot of those scrotes think that putting down their 2 litre cider bottles, getting their sweaty, tracksuit clad, arses off the sofa and down to the dole office qualifies as a "job." Bet they're "well knackered" by the time they get back, and need a well deserved six pack of Stella to unwind from the stress today's modern, cut throat, ultra-competitive workplace.

Jeez, the government could bring back the guillotine at this point for all I care. I'd even do my part by sitting at the bottom of it and making facial impressions of the "clients" in wax. Even if they are hideous, unshaven, warthogs, and don't get me started on the blokes!

Hypothetical (obviously). You've just been put in charge of cleaning everything back up or England's been told it will lose the Olympics. You've got carte blanche from the Govt all the way to the top...

LOL Jagunco, thats the first laugh I've had to do with anything to do with these riots. Thankyou. For those who havent seen the original comedy Youtube clip, here it is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owGykVbfgUE

Oh, and a quick well done to the police who got a grip of those little thieving bastards on the clip and gave them a thrashing.

With regards to the comments from Chris, (and I apologise if I offend anyone who works for the courts or the Crown Prosecution Service, CPS) In my experience of dealing with the courts, Crown and Magistrates, both are piss poor at giving the maximum sentences for crimes and most times they havent even given 50% of the maximum sentence. I've also worked in conjunction with CPS and seen a dozen or so of their people operate in court, all except one was very poor and did very little if any cross examination of the defendant. CPS tend only to prosecute anybody who they strongly feel they have an 80% of getting a guilty verdict, anything else seems to be 'binned' at the file build stage before a 'charge' decision is made.

I'm sorry but, waiting till after the riots (if thats what the DPP has decided it was) and then putting the scum through the legal system, tying up police for long periods of time with file building etc, and at the taxpayers expense, just doesnt fill me with joy and feelings of retribution.

All the riots/ damage / looting should have been dealt with at the time with force, Give the Police a go, if they cant do it bring in the army. Maybe, just maybe the 3 men in Birmingham hit and killed by a car, would still be with us.

No need to apologise Dave, I completely understand the frustration. I don't want this to seem like a cop out but its only once you get inside the system that you really see where the problems lie. You are also absolutely right about the progression to trial being based on the likelihood of conviction. That is more to do with the culture which is created in the CPS (and indeed the courts as well) which says that you have to proceed with all haste and efficiency, not waste time and proceed to a conclusion wherever possible. As a result, the CPS are under pressure not to proceed unless the case is robust and ready to go to trial. I have seen some CPS guys who were like a dog with a bone, really aggressive and thrusting. I have seen some who were simply awful. Wishy washy, unconcerned and limp wristed in their whole approach. It makes me want to kick them but unfortunately I can't run the case for them.

Nick,

Great question. Depends what mood you catch me in mate. I have been known to advocate stopping benefits until all costs are recovered, removing them from assisted housing and putting them out onto the street and seizing possessions to the value of damage caused. Including any costs incurred in doing so.

My problem with financial sanctions is that I estimate 95% of ALL fines currently handed out by the courts are attached to benefits. That means the courts can only take a MAXIMUM of £5 per week from the scrote in front of them who invariably has hundreds of pounds in outstanding fines sitting in their "account." So, fines don't work. Tax payers end up footing the bill.

Community charges vary from curfew, supervision, rehab, unpaid work. This can mean a requirement to complete a "course" on how to behave like a human being or attend to be put to work. Can't put them to work doing anything too onerous though, can't make it look like they are being forced to break a sweat and most who are sentenced to unpaid work don't bother to turn up and simply work through the system to a suspended sentence stage then stay out of trouble for a while until the sentence has run its course. Largely, community charges, suspended sentences, conditional discharges etc don't work. The vast majority will simply work their way up through the stages of sanction until they are facing a custodial sentence then eat that sentence or keep their nose clean for a while and start from scratch in twelve months or so.

Custodial sentences. The accused gets a reduction in the sentence (a hefty one mind you!!) for a guilty plea entered before trial. That is applied AFTER the sentence is decided and you cannot take it into account when sentencing through the band. You have to work through a number of forms and processes which then spit out a sentence band (a very narrow one!) which is handed down. So, say someone gets 12 weeks for some offence, if he pleads guilty it'll go down to 9 weeks without question for a guilty plea. He'll also get another reduction of 30% provided he does what he is told in prison. He probably will behave so that will take him down to 6 weeks. If he spent a week in prison waiting for the trial then that comes off as time served as well so before we know it the Courts have sentences him to 12 weeks and he's actually serving less than 5.

Anyway, that's my little rant for the day.

To get back to your question.

There are three phases to any successful plan. Tactical, Operational and Strategic.

Tactical is the immediate action required. In this instance the presence required to prevent the damage and looting taking place. Police with water-cannon and rubber bullets would be my personal choice. Alternatively, shoot one rioter in the face on the ten o'clock news and set him on fire. Wont see to many volunteers to take his place.

Operational is the medium term action. The stuff that needs to take place to maintain order once the situation is under control. That would be greater police patrols and police presence in hot-spots. Scooping up every one of the known looters and scumbags and putting them inside. Breaking up groups of youths in hot-spots. etc etc. All the stuff that will keep the lid on once you have put it there. This stage also includes recovery of stolen goods.

Strategic is the activity which prevents the problems arising again. Policing strategy for vulnerable areas, intelligence gathering, legislative change where necessary or modification of sentencing bands, working with youth groups, CCTV coverage. working with business owners to assist in securing their property more effectively.

there's a whole load of stuff that could be added into each of those three bands. One thing is for sure we can't sit back and do nothing.. then where would we be.. that's right... France!!!!

Jagunco wrote:Hello Rioters. Look at your friend, now back to me. Now at your friend, now back to me. Sadly, he isn't me, but if he stopped using petrol bombs and started using job centre he could potentially be me.

"Look down, back up. You're at an interview with the man your friend could work for. What's in your hand? Back at me. It's an application form to that job you need. Look again. The form is now money. Anything is possible when you get a job and stop looting. I'm on a horse."

That was genius! Great post.

I was watching footage of the looting again and a few things jumped that seemed to connect with what I had seen of the looters in my area. Firstly, there were definitely gangs organising these attacks but once it was clear the police were standing off and not engaging, a lot more kids got involved it was open season, if you can get through the door you can have what you like.

I bet for a lot of the kids involved this will have been the highlight of the summer. None of them will have wanted to miss out on the excitement or the bragging rights from being there. If, as Nick said, the gangs that kicked it off had been coming back with streaming eyes from CS gas and bashed in heads from the police instead of trainers and plasma screen TVs, a lot of these other kids would have probably stayed at home.

Thankfully most of them were too pig ignorant to make decent criminals like that whale of a chav waddling out of Poundland with armfuls of crisps. One idiot even posted pictures of himself on Twitter with his haul. He should be stuck in a dustbin full of spanners and rolled down several flights of stairs for his stupidity. And then he can go to prison.

You're right about the erosion of the right to discipline, starting with the police then teachers and even down to parents not being able to smack their kids. Of course every kid and general arsehole knows all about their rights

Although the "Public" may scratch their heads and wonder at the results and think that the powers that be didn't know what they were doing I suspect that the powers that be knew very well what they were up to.... or maybe not and I'm sounding like a Conspiracy theorist. Maybe it was just a Social experiment that went wrong and can't be reversed.

Yes, I'm quite sure most of the police would love to get stuck in and crack heads but their hands are tied it seems.

Re water canons and rubber bullets. They use them in Northern Ireland don't they and that's part of the U.K?

My young nephew is in 2 Para and just got back from Afghanistan and I'm sure him and his buddies would love to do some "undercover" policing but again it's all up to the "powers that be".

At least they've got wall to wall CCTV in London so that makes it easier to catch some of the arseholes.

We've been getting a fair amount of coverage her in Oz and being an expat I follow it as much as I can.

Great to see decent people come out and help cleaning up the mess and agree with BN that it's good to see some people protecting their area and businesses and standing up to the wankers. Just a pity they didn't do it sooner

Peter wrote:Slightly going off on a tangent but worth posting to show the police arent all being to soft.

Good tackle, I bet at least one of those lads is on the GMP Rugby team

I think by and large the Police tactics were spot on, all this talk of rubber bullets etc is way over the top, people dont deserve to die just because they were nicking stuff from a shop (or because they were standing near someone who did). There will be lots of arrests over the next few weeks Im sure, many will get their punishment soon - without the police killing or seriously injuring large numbers of people. Videos like the above showing police beating the crap out of suspects are exactly what they want to avoid

Nick Hughes wrote:They did not just nick stuff from shops. They burnt shops down, they assaulted people, and 3 kids are dead in Birmingham.

Some of those on the streets may have commited assaults and burnt down shops as you say - but firing potentially lethal rubber bullets into crowds is hardly descriminate and its up to the courts to decide who should be punished not the laws of physics

Nick Hughes wrote:If you do not meet force with force, it will escalate, just as it did.

Nick

This may be the case, maybe not. The heavy handed way the police dealt with the young girl after the shooting has already been mentioned as an incident which may have sparked off the initial violence. Obviously these things are complex and its often hard to really pinpoint the actual incident/situation which served as the catalyst for future events.

Im not making excuses for those involved in the violence and attacks, merely making the point that the actions of the police (real or percieved) can make a huge difference. Use of rubber bullets, water cannons, horses etc may have nipped it in the bud, but it also may have killed some people or even escalated the situation. So I think the police pretty much had it right overall